I read an article this morning in the EPLab Digest that has raised both my eyebrows. According to Greg Newman (Director of Business Development for Cardiac Science), Cardiac Science has teamed up with Best Buy for Business (BBB) and Geek Squad. The alliance will train BBB and Geek Squad employees to integrate small/medium-sized physician offices with the Cardiac Science ECG devices and their networks.

Sounds good—right?

Not in my opinion.

I can offer a unique perspective. A few years ago, I worked at a Maryland Best Buy as a “Best Buy for Business” associate. At 25, I was the oldest employee by several years. I was also older and had more experience than the GeekSquad, or the “Geeks” as we called them.

Sure, it was nice being BBB-we had soda behind our counter, but we weren’t specialized beyond knowing how to process the special BBB discount card some Best Buy customers had. To work there, you had to be well-spoken, be able to smile and know how to page a Geek if things got hairy in the technical department.

Has Cardiac Science not seen the awful reviews of GeekSquad and Best Buy on the internet? Google “Best Buy for Business” Complaint and you get 107,000+ results. Search for “Geek Squad Complaint” and you get 64,500 results. Many of these complaints are for poor customer service, service mis-representation, and misaligned corporate policies.

I understand that a company may want to offer a client the total package, and I doubt that Cardiac Science (now a subsidiary of the Indian Opto-Circuits), wants to hire its own tech support for networking.

Outsourcing seems to be the answer for many companies in today’s world. Companies outsource to my own company to provide CPR training! However, to work for my company, each instructor must have practical experience providing CPR. Lifeguard, EMT, Paramedic, Corpsmen, Nurse, etc… SES is unique in that when a company representative talks to a client, that client is speaking to someone who understands the emergency medical environment and the teaching one! Sounds pretty smart. Hire a company whose instructors have done CPR, can provide real-world answers to the students, and who can present a fun class that keeps people coming back.

Does hiring a high-school/early college aged kid to work on an ECG sound even a little bit smart? Not to my ears it doesn’t.

Cardiac Science has service techs in the field (I can personally attest to AED technicians being very active in my community with their clients) and these service techs are specialized in AEDs and medical equipment! Can a Geek Squad kid handle this? Would it be smarter to cross-train an existing medial device service tech in PC integration rather than training a PC-tech to work on medical equipment?

It also begs the question: Since Cardiac Science is now an Indian company, shouldn’t their access to tech support personnel have been expanded??